Le Clos wins two more gold for SA at Mare Nostrum in Canet

Updated: June 10, 2016

By Mark Etheridge

Another four medals came South Africa’s way as the French leg of the Mare Nostrum series wound up with day two action in Canet on Thursday.Once again leading the way was Chad le Clos who won gold in the 100m freestyle and 200m butterfly events.
Cameron van der Burgh bounced back from a bout of poor health to take silver in the 50m breaststroke final and fellow breaststroker Jarred Crous picked up bronze in the 200m final.
A handful of other South Africans were in action with Doug Erasmus, Tatjana Schoenmaker and Mariella Venter also making A finals.
The now clean-shaven Le Clos clocked 1min 54.82 to win the 200m fly, an impressive third length acceleration seeing him pull away for a victory margin of almost four seconds over Japan’s Kosuke Hagino (1:58.69).
His other gold in the 100m freestyle came with a swim of 49.02, 0.15sec clear of France’s Jeremy Stravius.
In the same race Erasmus, also qualified for the Rio Olympics later this year, was eighth in 50.48.
Van der Burgh’s silver was sealed with a swim of 27.44 as Brazil’s Felipe Franca da Silva won in 27.18. In the prelims, Van der Burgh had swum 27.74 while Crous (28.27) and Paralympic gold medallist Kevin Paul (30.74) were also in action during the prelims.
In the B final of the 100m free Myles Brown was fourth in 50.50.
Crous, who will be part of Team SA in Rio, took third in the 200m breast with a time of 2:12.29 as winner Anton Chupkov of Russia won in 2:08.53. Paul went 2:26.07 in the prelims.
Pretoria’s Tatjana Schoenmaker took fifth in the 200m breast final with a time of 2:27.70 (winner Rikke Moller Pederson of Denmark, 2:24.06) and eighth in the 50m breast final (32.54 compared to Brazilian winner Jhennier Conecicao, 32.34).
Young Venter was seventh in the 100m backstroke final (1:02.32 behind Russia’s Anastasiia Feskiova (1:00.50)
B final action saw Michael Meyer win the 200m ‘fly in 2:01.04 while Calvyn Justus also won his B final (backstroke) in 56.79.